


Inadequacies

by TheonSugden



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Angst, Gen, M/M, Mentions of Death, mentions of gore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-20
Updated: 2016-03-20
Packaged: 2018-05-27 22:14:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 827
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6302362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheonSugden/pseuds/TheonSugden
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eric tries to help Aaron cope with his guilt over the Wolves' attack on Alexandria.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Inadequacies

Every TV show and every movie had a scene where the wife put her hands on her husband’s shoulders as he pored over bills, or job worries, or a letter from his blackmailer about his dead mistress…or something.

Eric didn’t see himself as a “wife,” and he inherently knew those scenes were sexist and misogynist and many other -ists, but the image still comforted him when little else did. Standing behind Aaron, massaging his broad shoulders.

Aaron wasn’t looking at bills. He was studying maps and plans for defenses…defenses they both knew they didn’t have enough people or resources to build.

He didn’t bother to tell Aaron that, because the alternative was to stand outside and wash off the blood on the sidewalk…or walk next door to the house that used to have a grandmother and a son and wife and grandkids, and now just had a scared little old lady with dead eyes who’d scream if she hadn’t gone mute after the last family funeral.

“I wish…” he said, looking down at the kneaded plaid gripped tight in his long fingers. “I wish I was Carol.”

“Well, you’re not,” Aaron said, flatly, in a patronizing tone. 

Eric rolled his eyes. So much for small talk.

Carol was a hero. He’d known she couldn’t have just been a sweet gal with a degree in casseroles - you didn’t have that gleam from standing in front of an oven all day, no matter how hot it got - but no one had any idea what she would have been able to do when the Wolves…

Even now he couldn’t let himself remember everything they’d done, everything he’d seen and heard.

Carol had just flipped a switch, Rhona to Rambo. She’d saved so many people. She’d been brilliant, and clever, and brave…and Eric - Eric had sat in the infirmary.

“Maybe I should join the pink pistols,” he said, staring at the revolver Aaron kept nearby. Lately, he worried about leaving Aaron alone with the gun.

“That’s homophobic,” Aaron said, raking his eyes over his handiwork for the tenth time. “We’re just like everyone else.” 

Eric laughed - a little too bitterly.

“We should be ourselves. I’m damn proud of us. I don’t want to be like anyone else.”

Lately, they were more like everyone else, but only because everyone else had been dragged down to their level. When Alexandria had been at it’s best, when the town doctor had worn three layers of gloves before he’d go anywhere near Eric even for a stubbed toe, when Deanna’s dead soldier boy son, depending on alcohol intake, had either glared at Eric as he passed, or whispered demands for a blow job, when he and Aaron had been sent out to scout week after week because more than a few would have been happy if they’d never made it back..they hadn’t been like everyone else.

Aaron turned to look at him. Eric could barely hear him, he was so worried by the swelling and redness from all the crying Aaron did when he thought Eric couldn’t see.

“We _have_ to be like everyone else. Or we die.”

He stood up, back turned to Eric, shoulders slumped.

“And I…I can’t lose you, Eric. I can’t - I can’t kill you too.” 

Eric choked back a sob as his partner’s shoulders began shaking. He wrapped his long arms around Aaron’s waist, head resting on Aaron’s shoulder.

“None of this was your fault. The photos…they weren’t the reason. The reason was we were stupid and naive. We all were. We didn’t think anyone would…”

Images of half-dead, bleeding, weeping men, women and children rolled through his stomach, making him cling tighter to Aaron.

“You tried to stop it,” he said, tears wetting the back of Aaron’s flannel shirt. “You were so brave.” He smiled into Aaron’s back. “I don’t want to be Carol…I want to be you.” 

Aaron straightened up, moving away. Eric wondered if he’d said the wrong thing, but Aaron turned, replacing the taste of his flannel shirt with the softness of his lips, the slight burn of growing stubble.

“A really, really smart, sexy guy with great taste in boyfriends once told me that we should be ourselves. Remember?”

Eric nodded, blushing at Aaron’s praise even after all this time.

“You’re brave…and strong…and if you want me to teach you how to shoot, or use a knife…”

“I know how to do that,” Eric insisted, grinning.

“Or how to skin a rabbit…”

“I _never_ want to know how to do that,” he smirked as Aaron kissed his nose.

Aaron looked over at the plans, then toward the bedroom, then back at the plans.

He clasped a surprised Eric’s hand, leading him toward their room.

“So I’m supposed to call you Carol now, right…?” Aaron teased, eyes not so red anymore.

Eric not-so-gently shoved him, laughing as he did.

“Only if I can call you Daryl…”


End file.
